African Women’s Research Observatory (AfWORO) is registered as a not-for-profit association in Barcelona (Spain). Founded in July 2017, AfWORO contributes to the improvement of the physical, emotional, sexual and social health and wellbeing of women and sexual minorities from low-income countries by means of providing scientific, financial and technical mentoring for the promotion, funding, capacity building, conduct and dissemination of health, social and gender research in collaboration with emergent young African female scientists.

2019 FIRST FGM/C WORKSHOP FOR MALE HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN LIBERIA

Following the success of the PerTradFGMo workshops directed at female healthcare professionals, a workshop targeting male healthcare professionals was held in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, in the beginning of September 2019. In the two-day workshop, the participants gained knowledge through the lectures and expressed that they were eager to include the newly learned concepts in their clinical practice.

In August 2019 the project PerTradFGMo continued its capacity building by implementing two workshops in Zorzor, Lofa County, Liberia. A total of 21 female nurses and midwives, as well as 20 female trained traditional midwives and community health volunteers attended the workshops.

Farah Nabil, AfWORO’s gender researcher in Egypt received a grant to support AfWORO as a scientific writer during the Summer of 2019. She has contributed with research protocol writing, scientific editing, and grant applications preparation. During this period, Farah collaborated with scientists and development aid agents from Spain, Uganda and Senegal. As result of her experience, she decided to take the lead in the implementation, starting the next January 2020, of an AfWORO-funded training programme on the psychosocial health and well-being of men who have sex with men and women (MSW/W) in Senegal.

Thanks to an ANESVAD Award, over sixty midwives and nurses participated in three workshops on the Management of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) cases that AfWORO facilitated in Monrovia and Ganta, Liberia, in collaboration with Mrs. Christine K. Tarr-Attia and Ms. Kim Nordmann, in February 2019.

In February 2019, the NGO Ulls del Món (Eyes of the World) trusted AfWORO and Mozambican anthropologist Lara C Sousa as responsible for an ethnography to assess and map what are the barriers for women in the province of Inhambane, in central Mozambique, to access eye care services and accept cataract surgery.

Nicole Nkoum, AfWORO’s social scientist in Senegal, visited the Faculty of Health Sciences – University of Saragossa (Spain) the past November 2018. During her visit, Nicole presented her research portfolio to the MSc of Nursing Research students, and she worked with Dr. Ángel Gasch, an expert in HIV and masculinities’ studies, in the analysis of the data that she collected during her AfWORO-funded study on MSM/W barriers to HIV & Sexually-transmitted Diseases care access in Dakar.